Irvine-based Kajabi LLC, an online software platform for small businesses and entrepreneurs, said Sean Kim has joined the company as president and chief product officer.
Kajabi, founded in 2010, helps its members build and manage websites and digital offerings such as online courses, membership communities, podcasts and more.
Kim was previously the head of product at L.A.-based TikTok and has experience in driving technology innovation and customer adoption at technology companies.
He summed up the change from TikTok to Kajabi president this way: “For me it was like jumping off one rocket ship onto another,” he told the Business Journal.
Prior to TikTok, Kim was the global head of product at Amazon Prime (Nasdaq: AMZN), where he played a role in driving customer retention for the Prime Membership.
Kim reports to Ahad Khan, who last year took over the CEO role at Kajabi from company co-founder Kenny Rueter, who now serves as executive chairman.
Rueter and his wife, Kimberly, last year donated $1 million to the Hoag Hospital Foundation for breast cancer care and support for women patients. Their donation is part of this week’s Largest Charitable Gifts of 2021 list, which starts on page 20.
Record Year, Funding
The new hire is the latest sign of growth for Kajabi, which said it significantly expanded its customer base last year and achieved its highest annual recurring revenue in its history, though figures were not released.
Kajabi also completed a $550 million growth round of funding in 2021, in one of the larger fundraising deals for a privately held firm in County in recent years.
The fund was led by Tiger Global, with participation from TPG, Tidemark, Owl Rock, and Meritech, with continued support from Spectrum Equity, the original investor in the company.
The company is valued at more than $2 billion.
Building Businesses
“There is a lot of opportunity for this company,” Kim told the Business Journal on Jan. 31. “There is a ton of room for growth.”
It’s powering what it calls the knowledge economy—a community of creators with shareable skills—as people increasingly turn to the web to meet professional and casual learning needs.
“We provide many different types of media creators can use to provide knowledge to the audience, like podcasts, livestream, as well as video content that can be available behind a pay wall. We also provide marketing solutions like email, as well as payment solutions to accept subscription fees,” according to Kim.
He adds: “All of these things are packaged into one platform that helps creators build and scale their business globally and this is something that we’re going to continually focus on.”
$3B Generated
Kajabi has already helped its customers, from first-time creators to seasoned entrepreneurs, generate $3 billion in sales from over 60 million people globally—on topics ranging from coaching new parents on sleep training their children to teaching people how to incorporate their small business to training people how to forage for mushrooms.
The company, with offices at Spectrum Terrace, has 51,000 active users in 138 countries.
Kajabi, with a headcount of about 200 last year, was 21st on the Business Journal’s 2021 list of Best Places to work in OC for midsize companies.
Due to covid, most people at the company are still working remote, Kim said.Â
